[mythtv-users] Trouble with Windows frontend towards Linux backend - audio only, no video output

[Per Lundberg]

Hi there,

I'm trying to do some playing around, getting the MythTV frontend
running on Windows, towards a Linux server. The MythTV frontend works
under Linux, but the quality of the video output isn't that great, so
that's one of the reasons I'd like to test it on Windows instead. (The
graphics card is an nVidia 6150 integrated card, not really a monster.
:-)

All of this is with version 0.24 (more specific info later on)

At first, the frontend wouldn't even start. It turned out that the
settings that worked well under Linux didn't work at all on Windows.
Executing a "delete from settings where hostname = 'htpc'" SQL query
solved that part, it gave me a fresh start. (Can the hostname be
overriden somehow? There was an option for this in the (unofficial)
Windows installer but it seemed to fall back to the hostname returned
from Windows anyway...

Deleting those settings got me a MythFrontend that was capable of
starting, but the UI looked a bit messy somehow (running with Direct3D
as the output). I switched to Qt, and stuff looked better. But the
problem is that whenever I try to start live TV, I get nothing - I do
get sound, and in some of the modes (Direct3D, Qt or OpenGL) it gives
me a message about "Playback starting" or something like that. In
other modes, I don't even get that, the previous screen contents (from
the MythTV menus) remain on screen!

Really crazy. I even tried installing DirectX 9 but to no avail. What
could possibly be causing these weird errors? This is what the
frontend log looks like.

2010-11-20 23:57:40.337 VideoOutput, Error: Couldn't load deinterlace filter
2010-11-20 23:57:40.337 Player(2): Video timing method: USleep with busy wait
2010-11-20 23:57:40.337 TV: Changing from None to WatchingLiveTV
2010-11-20 23:57:40.337 TV: State is LiveTV & mctx == ctx
2010-11-20 23:57:40.352 TV: UpdateOSDInput done
2010-11-20 23:57:40.352 TV: UpdateLCD done
2010-11-20 23:57:40.352 TV: ITVRestart done
2010-11-20 23:57:40.790 Player(2): DecoderGetFrame() called with NULL decoder.
2010-11-20 23:57:41.509 VideoOutput, Error: Couldn't load deinterlace filter
2010-11-20 23:57:41.509 Player(2): Failed to enable deinterlacing
2010-11-20 23:57:41.509 AFD: Opened codec 0x315ac040, id(MPEG2VIDEO) type(Video)

2010-11-20 23:57:41.509 AFD: codec MP2 has 2 channels
2010-11-20 23:57:41.509 AFD: Opened codec 0x315ac410, id(MP2) type(Audio)
2010-11-20 23:57:41.587 AO: Opening audio device 'Windows:' ch 2(2) sr
48000 sf signed 16 bit reenc 0
2010-11-20 23:57:41.587 AudioPlayer: Enabling Audio
2010-11-20 23:57:49.715
RingBuf(myth://192.168.1.100:6543/2001_20101120235740.mpg): Waited 0.2
seconds for data
                        to become available... 1540 < 32768
2010-11-20 23:57:49.715 Checking to see if there's a new livetv
program to switch to..
2010-11-20 23:57:50.137
RingBuf(myth://192.168.1.100:6543/2001_20101120235740.mpg): Waited 0.2
seconds for data
                        to become available... 6280 < 32768
2010-11-20 23:57:50.137 Checking to see if there's a new livetv
program to switch to..

C:\Program Files\mythtv\bin>mythfrontend --version
Please attach all output as a file in bug reports.
MythTV Version   : 27252
MythTV Branch    : branches/release-0-24-fixes
Network Protocol : 63
Library API      : 0.24.20101028-1
QT Version       : 4.6.3
Options compiled in:
 profile using_backend using_frontend using_hdhomerun using_mheg
using_opengl_video using_opengl_vsync using_qtwebkit using_opengl
using_ffmpeg_threads using_mheg

per at terah:~$ mythbackend --version
Please attach all output as a file in bug reports.
MythTV Version   : 0.24
MythTV Branch    : exported
Network Protocol : 63
Library API      : 0.24.20101028-1
QT Version       : 4.6.3
Options compiled in:
 linux release using_alsa using_jack using_oss using_pulse
using_pulseoutput using_backend using_bindings_perl
using_bindings_python using_directfb using_dvb using_firewire
using_frontend using_hdhomerun using_hdpvr using_iptv using_ivtv
using_joystick_menu using_libfftw3 using_lirc using_mheg
using_opengl_video using_opengl_vsync using_qtdbus using_qtwebkit
using_v4l using_x11 using_xrandr using_xv using_xvmc using_xvmc_vld
using_xvmcw using_bindings_perl using_bindings_python
using_mythtranscode using_opengl using_vdpau using_ffmpeg_threads
using_live using_mheg

(The backend version is a .deb retrieved via debian-multimedia. The
frontend was downloaded from the "unofficial" MythTV for Windows
binary page.)

Any ideas/suggestions are welcome. Thanks!
-- 
Best regards,
Per Lundberg